of the Puritanical Assembly or Classis which puts the People between God and the King and therefore I call the one a Papal and the other a Phanatical Jesuite for I believe them both to be Roman Pensioners two Parties commanded by one General because in all times when the Government hath been charging one of them in the front the other hath always treacherously attack'd it in the rear and as much of late as ever and both prov'd themselves in the end Abhorrers of Monarchy under-hand Contrivers and restless Opposers of it as they always pretend for Conscience sake out of a joynt design to make the King a Property and his Government Precarious Their Names are different but their Nature is the same in point of Disobedience And the third viz. The Prophane Liver who pretends to Loyalty by making no Conscience of his Duty towards God is also a false Traytor to the King notwithstanding the many good words he gives him and the great Honour he vainly boasts in all Companies to bear towards Him 1. Give me leave to set first to the Bar the Papal Jesuite who is all for the fear of God the Propagation of the Catholick Religion and of the Apostolical See of Rome but tell him of the fear of the King and then he leaves you as if the Pope and He were the Real Defenders of the Faith and the King only the Nominal and Titular one and accordingly he teaches his Profelytes to weigh out their Obedience to him by Drams and Scruples in a Pair of Jesuitical Scales makes the Prince stand to the Popes Allowance for Authority and takeâ— his leavings who of course exempts all the Clergy from their Obedience to their Natural Sovereign and makes them pay their Suit and Service to him as their Lord Paramount as if his Tribunal and Gods were but one and the Civil Magistrate by becoming the Son of the Church had lost his Secular Power An excellent Doctrine to convert Pagan Princes to the Christian Religion or Protestants to the Popish The fatal and pernicious Consequences of which Popish Principles our Parliaments have in all Ages as well before the Reformation as since expressed their just detestation of as appears by the Statute of Carlisle made 35 Edw. 1. and by that of Proviso's made 25 Edw. 3. and by many more in King Henry the Eighth's Reign who was both Parliamentarily and Synodically invested with the Supremacy in all Causes as well Spiritual as Temporal which was legally and essentially inherent in the Crown before the King of England being Supreme Ordinary by the Antient Common Law of this Kingdom of which those Statutes were not Introductory but Declarative And 't is a great wonder to me that every Prince in Christendom is not as much possess'd with an Anti-Papal Spirit at this day as ever King Henry the Eighth was considering what an Implacable Enemy the Pope hath been to the Dignity and Security to the Powers and Lives of all Princes especially such as he calls Heretical ones 2. The Protestant or Fanatical Jesuites if they would be content to be civil Subjects yet they will be Ecclesiastical Superiors they would have a King under them not over them The King must Command as they will have him or he is no King for them nor will they fear him but make him fear them if they can compass their ends He must do things against his Conscience Oath and Honour against the Fundamental Laws of the Land and the very being of the Government or else though they speak him as fair as they did his Roayl Father of blessed memory in the Covenant and so hide the Cloven Foot for a while with their broad Pharisaical Phylacteries and intrench themselves in the sure retreat of those popular and plausible Pretences of preserving His Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion yet they watch but for a fair opportunity to put off their Hypocritical Vizards and to make him feel the smart effects of their Implacable Enmity against him and let him see by woful experience how little they do either love or fear him as they did his Royal Father before him David was a Man after Gods own heart and had a Conscience truly tender I would to God all that are call'd so in our days were like it which made him so sensible of his fault in snipping off a small shred of the Skirt of Saul's Coat But our Dissenters Itching Fingers long to be tampering with the Prerogative and will cut off as much as they can get into their hands and throw it to the People as the Men of God did in the late â—â— Rebellion for so the deluded Multitude call'd them though they prov'd Men of War fir'd with Phanatical Zeal against the Most Christian Magistrate in the World our Martyr'd Sovereign The Black Coats of their Schism in stead of being Messengers of Peace sounded the Treasonable Alarms from such places as these though the Red Coats fought the Battles they taught their Congregations to construe the Singulis Major and Vniversis Minor after Buchanan's Translation and made them believe That the People which begins to be as fashionable a word now as it was Forty years since were as much above the King as the King is above the meanest of his Subjects The King say they and other Magistrates are but our Servants to protect us from Violence and Mene Tekel pag. 41. Oppression and if they break their Trust the Law of God and Nature allows us to call our Servants to account and to punish them according to their Demerits and to turn them out of our Service In good time and out of the World too as they did the Hist of In dep Part 2. Sect. 80 81 82. Royal Martyr as a Traytor to the Sovereignty of the People as that Insolent Judge Bradshaw then Impudently styl'd it which corrupt and false Principle of placing the Original of Government in our Sovereign Lords the People is not only derogatory to God whose Written Word it gives the lye to but is also destructive to the very being of Humane Society For if the Power be radically in them and only pass'd over by the Conveyance of a Common Consent with a Power of Revocation upon equitable Conditions express'd or imply'd of which the People shall be Judges it is but their recalling of that Power to which the Vnwary Mobile may be easily tempted for 't is Neutrum modo mas modo Vulgus and the Government is dissolv'd and so all our Happiness lies at the Mercy and Will of the Crowd which will make us a reproach to our Neighbours and Psal 79. 4. a scorn and derision as it hath already done in a great measure to all that are round about us We live in an Age wherein Men seem to call themselves Protestants not from that solemn and Honourable Protestation which was made by several Princes against the Errours and Superstitions of Rome and an Edict made in prejudice of
the Reformed Religion at Spires in Germany A. D. 1529. but rather from the Protestations made by the Covenanting Rebels of Scotland against Gods and the Kings Authority A. D. Hist of Iâ—dep Part 2. Sect. 100. 1 1. 1638. and 1639. First against the Function of Episcopacy as Antichristian and not long after against the King and Kingship it self which they first voted down and then abjur'd And still their Impenitent Off-spring who are Nurs'd up too fondly amongst us fear any thing but God and the King being grown so over-familiar with both as to contemn them Nimia superbia nihil timent The Haughty Spirits of our Modern Seditious Dissenters the last but worst Edition of Protestants and that which needs much Correction and Amendment scorn to stoop to Authority and therefore they speak evil of Dignities and Libel the Government and do as much as in them lies to scare all the Princes in Christendom from turning Protestants by reason of whom the Way of Truth and of the best Religion under Heaven comes to be evil spoken of from whence our Calamities do arise and Solomon says theirs shall suddenly arise 3ly He who calls himself a Royalist and yet disgraces so Good a Cause by his Bad Life does also disjoyn God and the King He pretends as much to Honour the King as the other two do to fear God He will Talk Drink and Fight for him but whilst he makes no Conscience of his duty to God but lives in all manner of Lewdness and Prophaneness he is not so good a Servant to the King as he would be thought to be for he does him more hurt by his Sins than he can do him good by his Sword and pulls down more Judgments by his Iniquities than he can ever prevent or remove by his utmost Endeavors And therefore though you are ready to open your Veins and Purses for him as becomes you upon all Occasions and as your Loyal Ancestors of Yorkshire did before you for his Father of Blessed Memory yet unless you who have rebell'd against him by your evil Lives do reconcile your selves to the King of Heaven and make your peace with him you are but Traytors to his Crown and Dignity nor can you ever be truly devoted Servants to him unless you are devout Servants to the Almighty from whom comes his help No Man can serve his Prince without Courage and Honesty and 't is the Fear of God which is the right Parent of both and therefore as no true Christian can ever be a Rebel so neither is any vicious Man a truly Loyal Subject for how serviceable soever he may be to the King in other Instances the Iniquities which he cherishes are such for which 1 Sam. 12. 25. God will destroy both him and the King So that all National Sins have High Treason in them and every Combination in such publick Enormities is a Conspiracy and Rebellion against our King and Country Now as great Sinners as the worst of you are I hope you are all more Men than to prove your selves such Beasts as to become Paracides to please a destructive Lust and to imbrue your Hands in your Princes Blood to whom you pretend so much Duty rather than to wash them in Innocency for his good and your own If there be any true Love and Loyalty in you to our Gracious Sovereign Lord and his Royal Family Any Affection to your Native Country Any Compassion to your own Souls amend your Lives speedily and do not like blind Sampson pull down the goodly Fabrick of Church and State upon their Heads and your own by your continued Rebellion against Heaven but live so in the fear of God as if you did in earnest desire and hope for better times Be faithful to the King in your Persons and Purses but let not your evil Lives conspire against him If our Enmity against the King of Heaven do not shake his Throne the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it If you agree that God and the King are to be fear'd why do you not agree to do it If either you are Solomons Sons or Gods Servants if your Wisdom be from above or of this World 't is more than time that you shewed it by putting his Paternal Precept in practice and taking also the just notice which becomes you of his secondly Peremptory Prohibition Meddle not with them that are given to change with Men of Levity and Humour for it argues a great Disease and Sickness as well in the Soul as in the Body whether Natural Politick or Ecclesiastical to be continually tossing from one side to the other Sound Religion like the Author of it being yesterday to day and the same for ever and that Form of Government best both in Church and State into which the Real Interest and Manners of the People have run longest and with the strongest Current Let not Inconveniences prevail with you to break Oaths or to overturn Laws and Antient Boundaries for nothing hath so great an Inconvenience in it as that those are but partial but this would be a total one Now all Publick Changes are full of difficulty but those in State or Religion are so full of danger too that it hath always been thought fit by Wise Men to bear with some tolerable Defects and Evils in either rather than by endeavouring to reform them to hazard the marring of all the rest And though Interest in such as desire a change do often make them apprehend more Advantages than really there are and cover those very Doubts and Dangers they are privy to for fear of disheartning those short-sighted Men who are unadvisedly Imbark'd in their designed Innovations yet the sharpest eye-sight is not able to reach the sad Consequences and fatal End of such Attempts For either their Counsels must be back'd with Arms or they will prove dangerous to the Undertakers and so they who have ingag'd themselves and others in such a desperate design are reduc'd before they are aware to the Vicious Necessity of more desperate Remedies and do often make choice of those which are much more mischievous than the Diseases which they pretend to cure There are few Men Ingag'd in any Faction who are so wise as to see their own Mistakes or so ingenuous as to confess them when they see them Besides the fear and jealousie of being call'd to a future account for the breach of the known Laws of the Kingdom does naturally beget more rebellious Attempts in those Incroaching Subjects who being conscious to themselves of their having exceeded the limits of Duty and Obedience to their lawful Sovereign will do what in them lies to debase the King below the condition of any free-born Subject and by factious and seditious Reflections on the Government will keep the Wounds of the Kingdom open that they may suck its Blood and save their own which has been the unwarrantable practice of some Brokers of Sedition in these days for whom the Kings
Bench is a much fitter place than the Royal Exchange By all which it will appear that the Changing of Religion under any Comprehensive Notion whatsoever is the most desperate Paroxysm that can happen to a sickly State and therefore Maecenas in Dio counsels young Octavian to worship God according to his Country custom and to compel others so to do but to hate and punish the Bringers in of strange Religions because they who bring in new Forms of Worship will also perswade Men to receive other Laws and bring in as fast as they can new Forms of Government And therefore when the National Religion comes to be question'd disputed and decryed 't is high time for the Supreme Magistrate to take heed that Popular Tumults and Disturbances do not sit hard upon the Commonwealth for Schismaticks are the Standard-Bearers of Sedition and the common Barretors of Mankind Traytors in Masquâ—rade and if their Power were answerable to their Spirits they would command Fire from Heaven to burn us all up in an instant And yet to our shame be it spoken we English-Men never know when we are well and are justly reproach'd by a Proverb for being given to change our Garbs and our Forms of Religion must be of the new Model Cut or Fashion many quarrel at the Principles of that established by Law and more despise the practice of it God has made us the Envy and we live as if we meant to make our selves the Scorn of the World Our Laws are good and many and we live as if we had none Our Religion is firmly established by them and we laugh it out of countenance and the Liberty of Conscience which we are so ready to contend for is design'd for nothing but a Cloak of Maliciousness I would to God it were not told in Gath nor publish'd in the streets of Ascalon Are you grown sick of your Religion and Loyalty and with an Inconstancy natural to Islanders do you affect a change for the worse if not why do you meddle with them that are given to it and why do you espouse their Cause as if it were the darling of your own Hearts or why will you run along with them into real and present to avoid possible future and imaginary mischeifs Would you change a Catholick Church into a sarm of Schismatical Conventicles a Flourishing Kingdom into a Fading Commonwealth Vniformity into Confusion the Antient Fundamental Laws of the Land into those Bloudy ones which the Arbitrary Sword shall give you a long and lasting peace into a more lasting War Fulness into Famine Wives into Widdows Children to Orphans bring your selves into your Graves and leave the English Nation behind you a hissing and reproach to all that are round about us Will no Charters please the Body Politick but such as may inable them to Sin with an high hand against the Father of our Country from whose bounty they derive all their Freedoms and Priviledges for all Corporations are the Creatures of the Crown and when their high Stomachs will not be satisfied unless they may devour their Makers Prerogative they need a Charter of Pardon in stead of that of Freedom Alas that Golden Liberty which you have been vainly taught to hope for by some busie Incendiaries who are now under the lash of the Law you would have found as the just reward of your easie credulity to have been nothing else but the Iron Fetters of the most Arbitrary Slaves in the World under the worst of Algerines your own fellow Subjects the gilded Antidote which these State-Mountebanks offer'd you would have prov'd a deadly poyson and it concerns you as much as your happiness comes to to take great heed lest by bogling at the shadow of Popery plac'd only in your own deceitful imaginations you open the door before you are aware to let in the Substance He that would see what will be let him seriously consider what hath been let him sum up the Total Account of the profit of all that Bloud and Treasure which was spent in our late unhappy Wars for promoting the Good old Cause Religion and Property the ordinary Common Places upon which Rebels declaim and satisfie himself that there are the same Desires Humours and Interests drove on in this age that were in the former and much more furiously now than then by hands and mouths as like to those in Forty Eight as one Egge can be to another The grand design of our late sawcy Clamarous Petitioners was the putting of the Government all out of Order and making so many gaps and divisions in the Publick Fences of the Kingdom that any seditious Person might leap over them or break through them at pleasure You had been fill'd ere this with your own desires if God and the King had not been merciful to you beyond your deserts and whatsoever you then vainly dream'd of when you are once perfectly awake you will find ten Rebels in Masquerade for one Romanist in Masquerade or else there would never have been so many Mechanical and Female Politicians so many Blew and White Aprons for the former are influenc'd by the later to inform and advise the King and his Privy Council when to call Parliaments and how to govern us How can you betray greater ingratitude to God and the King for the peace and plenty you now do and have so long jnjoy'd than by anticipating future evils and prejudging future providence and for preventing imaginary mischiefs running headlong into real ones They fright the common people out of their Wits and Duty together by fly-blowing their Heads with the buzzing of Plots and Designs in the Air against their Lives and Liberties by which 't is to be fear'd they design to teach them at last to pinion their own Happiness and to bring our Gracious Sovereign whom God long preserve to the same fatal Scaffold that they did King Charles the Martyr which no good Man can think of without the greatest abhorrence imaginable These Intestine Incendiaries are set on underhand by the Court of Rome and perhaps by another Court too both whose Interests depend on our Divisions and Distractions to disperse and foment Jealousies between the King and the Country by bespattering him with a design of Introducing Popery and Arbitrary Government and branding Men of more Sobriety Justice and Charity of much better Principles than themselves with Nicknames not fit to be mentioned here and endeavouring to run down the best Men and Counsellors with Noise and Tumult beyond all shame and reason as they attempted to do some of our Noble Countrymen who are the Glory of the North and their Reputation the more Glorious after such a Resurrection as God and the King have given it Things were lately come to that pass that he who was not factiously bent against his Majesties Prerogative and the Churches Patrimony and would not be such a thorow-pac'd Protestant as not only to forsake and oppose Rome but also to take his Freedom at
Amsterdam was stigmatiz'd as a dangerous person who design'd the Slavery of English-men and the Ruine and Extirpation of the True Protestant Religion Take heed to your selves whilst you may before your Happiness be fled too far out of distance to be retriev'd Meddle not with them who do not fear God and the King fear not their fear be not afraid without a cause but let the Isai 8. 12. Lord be your fear lest you involve your selves and others in the same Mischiefs which Solomon foretels will infallibly light upon the Heads of them who are given to change and of the Medlers too which never were nor will be good for any thing till they are rotten which brings me in the last place to the 3. Proper Suggestion upon which his Prohibition is grounded or the reason of this restraint laid upon his Son drawn from the Changers and Medlers doom for their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knows the ruine of them both detrahentis ei feventis eorum detractiones libenter audiendo of him who robs the King of the Honour due to him and of him who lends an itching ear to the disloyal Detractor for the Receiver is as bad as the Thief and he who does not apprehend and discover him whom he finds robbing the King of his Good Name and of his Subjects Hearts shall fare no better than he When God and the King exert their Power their Enemies ruine will be certain whether they be Changers or Medlers which is the first aggravation of their Judgment drawn 1. A Certitudine doubt it not their Calamity shall rise and they who would not in time fear shall then infallibly feel the just effects of their displeasure Be not deceiv'd God is not mock'd for whatsoever a Man Gal. 6. 7. sows that shall he also reap for he is no respecter of persons but his Judgments are true and righteous altogether Psal 19. 1. so that it must needs be a fearful and fatal thing for a Traytor to fall into the hands of the living God who hates Rebellion as the Sin of Witchcraft and will revenge it accordingly No Policy Plot or Strength of any created thing shall be able to rescue or reprieve them when once his Vengeance hath appointed their execution all their Slights and Tricks shall fail them at a dead lift an Ignoramus Jury cannot serve their turns for the sentence of this great Judge is irrevocable they shall soon be cut off as the grass and wither Psal 37. 2. as the green herb The Authority of God and the King must at any rate be redeem'd from contempt by the due execution of the Laws of both against obstinate Offenders and incorrigible Villains which is the Reputation and Life of the Government and therefore Kings do not only participate of Gods Power and Patience but must also imitate him in his Justice and his manner of proceeding against obstinate Rebels Whatsoever is necessary is also just and that must be done which cannot be avoided Without Government there would be no Communities of Men and without Coercive Power there would be no Government and as it is not Persecution but an Act of Mercy to cut off a Gangreen'd Arm from the Body Natural to preserve the Man from perishing so is it no less to the Body Politick to cut off those corrupt Members of the Commonwealth which hinder the Kingdom from flourishing to prevent those growing Mischiefs of which the Ringleaders of Rebellion are ambitious to be the Authors by smiting those with the Sword of Justice who smote the King and their fellow Subjects with the Fist of Violence 'T is Power that begets Fear and Fear that makes Gods and Rules the World and accordingly the Pulse of the Government beats high or low with that of the Supreme Magistrate whose remisness and connivance does prognostick the decay of an unsetled Government Toleration as harmless and reasonable a thing as it now seems was once thought intolerable by them who now earnestly plead for it and will be found if ever tryed as I hope it never will to be the cause of many more Evils than we can easily foresee and will render the Diseases and Distempers of the State as well as of the Church more strong and powerful than any Remedies and that King who will make his Enemies believe that he is afraid of danger in the discharge of his Trust shall never live without it 'T is better to venture some trouble at hand and run the hazard of Legal Executions than to fall under certain ruine though somewhat farther distant The Crowd is rather to be awed than reason'd with by Lawyers it being Fear and not Love or Judgment which is their proper Passion for though none are so bold and insolent in their Juncto's and Cabals as they yet none so faint-hearted and fearful apart 'T were well if Love could but 't is necessary that Fear should Rule the World and therefore 't is safer to work upon them by a Power which may cure the one than by any advantage that may excite the other which they will perversly impute to unavoidable good Nature Fear Oversight or Weakness and if any of them seem converted by it and are wrought over into a better mind or put by Preferment into an hot fit of Loyalty they will cool on a suddain and prove like Witches able to do hurt but no good at all to the Government to raise the Devil of Discontent and Rebellion but not to lay it whereas if the Prince punish them by the severity of the Law he will oblige them or others to the observance of it ever after nor will they love him for his Clemency till he have first taught them to fear him for his Justice and Resolution 'T is impossible ever to oblige them for they will make one Concession only the Foundation of another Request and having used themselves to desire more than in duty becomes them they will never think themselves safe without the Sword and Scepter as well as the Crosier and Miter in their Hands It will but elevate them in their Hopes and make them more insolent in their Demands Having offended the King they will never think themselves safe till they are above his reach and have either so disarm'd him or arm'd themselves as not to fear him And for as much as it hath been always found by experience that they who least consider danger in the doing their Duty fare best still therefore does it concern the King and all who are put in Authority under him to crash this Cockatrice in the Egge as soon as they discover it Serò Medicina paratur cum mala per long as convalâ—êre moras Blessed are they that Psal 106. 3. keep Judgment and he that does Righteousness at all times Fiat Justitia ruat Coelum is as good a Maxim in times of Peace as War and they who do their Duty without disputing the success shall never